Scallop Appetizer

I had the misfortune of buying too many scallops for my scallop carpaccio experiment so I ended up having to think up lots of dishes to get rid of my scallop inventory.  All of these dishes are related and made pretty much the same way, though the textures are very different.

First up is the grilled scallop appetizer with ikura topping and parmesan foam.

 

Ingredients:

3 sashimi grade scallops

2 TBS of ikura (salmon fish roe)

1 pinch of crushed black pepper

1 pinch of japanese ginger flower (dried and crushed into powder)

1 pinch of tomato powder (refer to the hotate carpaccio posting for making tomato powder)

1 TBS of extra virgin olive oil (for plate dressing)

1 TBS of olive oil (for tossing the scallops before grilling)

1 teaspoon of parmesan foam for each scallop.  Recipe to follow.

For the parmesan foam: use 1 cup of half & half or if you don't have half & half (like in my case) use 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 of cream.  Bring the liquid to a simmer, don't let it boil violently.  Toss in 2 cloves of peeled and crushed garlic and 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese.  The parmesan cheese is an approximate since it just tossed in block of parmesan until I got the right consistency.  You can tell that I'm not big on measuring things.  You want the mixture to have a nice sauce like consistency, add cheese to thicken, add milk to thin.  Keep the heat low at all times and let the cheese slowly melt, it'll take a little while so be patient.  When you're ready to create foam, just use an immersion blender and blend it until you get some foam at the top.  I'm not doing molecular gastronomy so I'm not adding lecithin and making things complicated.  Simply blend the liquid until you get a little foam, kind of like making the foam milk for cappuccino.  Your foam won't last very long so do it right before you serve the dish.  If you took too long and your foam collapses, it's no big deal, it just becomes a sauce for the scallops.   

Dry the scallops with paper towels until the paper towels does not soak up any water.  This is what gives the scallops their sear marks and the crust.  Toss the scallops in olive oil and throw on a hot grill for about 1 1/2 minutes on each side.  The outside should develop nice sear marks while the inside should still be some what raw.  If you don't have a grill, you can heat up a cast iron skillet or even pan fry the scallops.  

 To dress the plate, drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle with tomato powder and japanese ginger powder (see Hotate Carpaccio recipe for directions on making tomato and japanese ginger powder), reserve a little to garnish the top of each scallop.  Sprinkle the plate with crush black pepper.  Place the scallops on the plate, scoop the ikura on the scallops, sprinkle a little tomato powder and japanese ginger powder on the ikura.  To finish, scoop a little parmesan foam on the side of each scallop.